Priego de Córdoba to Antequera – 82km

I am posting my journals backdated to the day I wrote them, so read from bottom up if you have just arrived. Keep checking back, I have two weeks of journals to upload.

We grabbed breakfast at the hotel this morning, then rolled West out of town. Just out of town, we turned South towards Rute through the Parque Natural de las Subéticas de Córdoba. There had been some recent rockfall on the road, so it was closed to anyone who could not get around and once again, we had the road to ourselves.IMG_0468

After the last few days, the climbing was easy and we were treated to kilometres of downhill into Rute. The mountains here have sheer cliff faces and several of the smaller ones have ancient castles guarding their heights. Below us, for as far as the eye can see, are endless groves of olive trees.IMG_0470

Out of Rute, we descended to Embalse de Iznájar, a massive reservoir. We passed over the dam and found a spot for lunch in a pine forest overlooking the water. The view across the water to the olive groves was beautiful, but marred by a layer of scum and garbage on the water near the shore.IMG_0494

We headed West again to Cuevas de San Marcos and continued on to the A-45 where we followed a long, straight service road paralleling the highway South into Antequera. The riding was easy, but boring, only made interesting by blood red fields of poppies stretching between olive groves.IMG_0498IMG_0499

In Antequera, we stayed in the Hotel El Coso overlooking the square beneath the castle. After cleaning our riding clothes, we wandered the town, checked out the shops and had a dinner of tapas and beer before retiring for the night.IMG_0503IMG_0505

Download GPX file for the day. [maptype=G_MAP_TYPE]

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.

Comments are closed